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Eats and Beats: Finding joy in the every day with Tow’rs

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Gretta and Kyle Miller of the Flagstaff band, Tow'rs.

The Flagstaff folk-rock band Tow’rs has a new album out. Their sixth album, Joy Alchemy, was recorded live in-studio, forcing them to abandon their quest for perfection. Like so many others during the coronavirus pandemic, front couple Kyle and Gretta Miller felt like parts of their lives were out of control. Their new album is an intimate, yet brutally honest examination of the life they’ve built together and letting go of what doesn’t serve them.

In the latest installment of KNAU’s Eats and Beats series, Tow’rs talks about their musical partnership and journey to self-acceptance. Their new album, Joy Alchemy, is out now.

Kyle Miller: Tow'rs started at NAU. It was a group of friends and it started as us getting together and originally making meals and playing songs. Gretta and I had recorded a few songs that we were interested in bringing other people in on and the three other people that we brought in, ended up becoming kind of more of a solid member base for us that we call Tow’rs. Members have come and gone, and Gretta and I kind of consider ourselves the main part of the group.

Gretta Miller: It’s always been a part of our relationship. When we started becoming friends, we started playing music together and started writing together before we were even officially dating. So it's also that we don't really know our relationship without this element in it. So I think that's allowed us to just fully embrace it as part of who we are and part of how we work together. I think we definitely have our differences and need to work out our things, but I think it teaches us more than it takes away.
GM: We have two kids, and they come along with us and they've been a part of the journey since the beginning.

KM: I can remember when our son was still in diapers and feeling like, I think there's always an ego check that happens to if you get off the stage, you feel like you had a really great show. And then you like smell a dirty diaper. And you're like, “Oh yeah, I gotta change that.” Like I'm a dad right now, I loved that juxtaposition. It keeps you in check of what's important — and to hold the things loosely that you should hold loosely.

KM: This album, we did entirely live.

GM: Each song we would just play three times, five times depending on the song, and then just pick our favorite take. You can't edit it as much you can't be as particular, but you really get to lean into that feeling of the live experience and that playing off of each other and feeling the energy of the room while you're recording. And it just creates this whole different feel and experience.

KM: I really wanted this album, to be an added step in that exercise of self-acceptance and showing people really who we are — and what better way to do that than to perform it live and have it be as it is.

GM: When we started writing “Joy Alchemy,” we were actually in the midst of the pandemic. And we were really trying to lean into, “Okay, what can we do with this time? How can we take advantage of it and find the good in it?” And this album really leans into the concepts of choice. Like, we have the choice to make this experience, but we want to make it or even if we're feeling these hard things, how do we still choose joy? I think that that joyful element in this was really a choice because it was at a time where it didn't always feel natural.

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Bree Burkitt is the host of Morning Edition and a reporter for KNAU. Contact her at bree.burkitt@nau.edu.